The Tower

The Tower was my third novel, published in 2014 and, in a revised edition, in 2015. I wrote a first treatment for a novel on Giordano Bruno and the Internet Age back around twenty-five years ago. I was inspired by Frances A. Yates and her magisterial book The Art of Memory. In pre-Internet days, I had a vision of a world where big corporations exercised mind control through information control, a bit like the times of religious oppression in which lived Giordano Bruno, the ultimate independent thinker and a martyr for free thought. This novel has enjoyed a certain commercial success – perhaps because it has some thriller elements in it (Sarah Broadhurst of Lovereading described it as “a brilliantly gripping, clever thriller”) – and has been praised by many for its scope and ambition. I am very glad that I have managed to complete it twenty-five years after its first inception – and feel privileged to have been able to read Bruno’s Italian and Latin works, and the papers of his trial, during its composition.

“Gallenzi combines his two narratives with engaging skill … This deft and enjoyable novel makes the case for intellectual freedom.” The Scotsman

“[Alessandro Gallenzi] has done much assiduous and scholarly research … He is the thinking person’s Dan Brown” The Tablet

“Gallenzi’s passion really takes flight when it comes to Bruno – and the book lifts off.” The Independent

“At the heart of the book is a big, bold idea: the hallowing of free intellectual enquiry and contempt for the manipulation of knowledge.” Richmond Magazine

Amman, Jordan. As an ambitious digitization project gathers pace in a vast building outside Amman, some unpublished writings by Giordano Bruno – flawed genius of the late Renaissance, renegade philosopher, occultist with a prodigious memory – disappear together with the Jesuit priest sent by the Vatican to study them.

When the priest is found dead and a series of mysterious threats ensues, it becomes clear that the stakes are high for all the parties openly or covertly involved. What dangerous ideas were contained in the stolen manuscript? What was the ultimate secret that Bruno tried to hide, even as he was persecuted, imprisoned and tortured by the Holy Inquisition?

In this riveting, meticulously researched new novel, Alessandro Gallenzi draws on his experience as a publisher in the digital era and casts a light on the darker side of our modern technological world, while revealing how a well-kept secret can change the course of history for ever.